I don't do diaries often, but I thought it might be entertaining and slightly informative to see what some people outside the country made of last night's results.
I'm a frequent contributor to a forum for soccer supporters around the world. There's not a lot of substance, but I think it might give some insight as to how people and especially the media see Iowa's place in the primaries.
This is not intended to be representative in any way. I have not edited the comments in any way except for the sake of brevity. This is just some of the voices of mainly 17-29 year old guys in Europe and around the world.
For full disclosure, the question I put forth was:
The first step towards choosing the next President took place last night in Iowa. Barack Obama, an African American Senator from Illinois beat John Edwards, a former Senator from North Carolina and John Kerry's VP choice, and Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and Senator from New York. The turnout was historic, nearly 80% higher than the previous record.
The question is two-fold. Are you/your town/your press paying attention to any of this? And what do you make of it, if anything?
Answers:
England:
i'm marginally interested, (and could be furthered) but terms like "caucus" baffle me?, im aware it's some kind of meeting?
I'll be honest, no.
I was quite disappointed with the BBC's coverage of this. They seem to have virtually handed Obama the bible and pointed him in the direction of the Chief Justice after his win in Iowa.
Perhaps i'm underestimating Iowa's importance, but there's still a long way to go, especially even if you only consider how fundamentally different the next primary in NH is.
What's the feeling over there - stampede toward Obama or more reserved? I did feel one of Channel 4 news' points that Americans really wanted a new change in direction and hence Hilary's support might suffer among undecideds obviously due to being tied to her hubbie's terms was an interesting one.
yes and no, I prefer Obama to Clinton and Edwards from the little I know, and obv prefer Democrats to the Republicans. Whether it'll make much difference to my life or not I don't really know, regime changes (if you can call it that), generally bring a load of hope and expectation, followed by inaction and disappointment.
I was watching the BBC News 24 coverage last night and it wasn't too bad. Though it was basically The Obama Show. Not seen any of the actual news programs today though so can't comment.
I reckon Obama will have a crack at getting Schweitzer as VP.
The most interesting thing about the coverage in the uk has been the way it's been mostly about the democrats. That could be because the republican field is complete dogshit, or it could be because they know Brits will be instinctively rooting against anyone associated with the party of George W. Bush.
Scotland:
Barack is awesome, I was delighted 5am-ish this morning when I read the report on CNN. Even moreso, with Iowa being a majority 'white state'.
Hope he can keep it up, obviously Clinton's massive bankroll will play a part in the decisions of other states but hopefully the young voters will continue to come out and vote the way they did in Iowa to give Obama a stronger showing.
Don't think Huckabee's evangelical vote will carry him through enough states on the republican side will it?
There's no coverage on the Scottish news, but I imagine the BBC news will have a few minutes on it.
I listened in to the coverage on the radio - they were doing a simulcast with some Chicago station on 5 live/Radio Scotland overnight. The candidates speeches were interesting. John Edwards strikes me as the most encouraging of the bunch, particularly his position in relation to medical care.
Am a news sub for the local evening newspaper here in Dundee and we carried near enough a full page on it today, which is maybe a little more than we would normally, but, well, it's January 4th and the more parochial stuff was thin on the ground. Also, I guess there are elements to the contest that are capturing the attention more than usual, even in the UK.
Holland:
Obama seems marginally better than other candidates, including republicans. But at the end of the day, he's just another American politician in a system that is quite a way away from proper representative democracy.
Should he become president, his policies will not differ greatly from his predecessors'.
Norway:
High up on all national media websites in Norway, and prominent in all foreign affairs sections of the newspapers.
They tend to think that victory in Iowa is as good as being the presidential candidate already, despite examples of previous Iowa losers still winning the candidacy and furthermore the presidency.
Wales:
I was surprised that Obama came away from the Caucus in Iowa with such a big margin.
Can't stand that Huckabee guy though, saw an interview with him on CNN and he looked mostly clueless. Was quite surprised he came top of the Republican pile.
I'm not sure that I care but a black man in the White House would be brilliant!
South Africa:
I will be brief and say that here in SA it got a lot of coverage (and not because he is black). I think South Africa on the whole would want a democrat in the hot seat.
Denmark:
Got quite alot of coverage today round here, mainly on TV.
Don't know what to think about it really, the media over here spend more time on the fact that he's black than on what his politics are, the other nomination-candidates aren't really getting any attention.
Spain:
Yes, but only to the results. I don’t know if it was on Spanish channels but I guess it was (on news channels almost for sure). We have Fox News, CNBC and CNN too, plus channels like BBC World or Al Jazeera, so I could have watched it, but I decided to watch Snatch instead.
The media have paid attention to it ofc, it was on the news programmes, the papers etc. It was the top international story today, besides the turmoil in Kenia.
I wouldn’t vote the republican candidate, even if he was god itself. I’m scared of them, religion, Chuck Norris, even elephants scare me... so I pay more attention to the democratic candidates.
I don’t know much about Edwards tbh and I think Hillary is clueless so my favourite candidate is Obama. I’m glad he won in Iowa.
Finland:
In Finland Iowa has been pretty big news, nothing major, but the biggest foreign news item in all of the main channels. Though to me it seems that finnish reporters usually just translate what the foreign news outlets are saying and cant be bothered to make any own assumptions, so you can pretty much see the finnish press reaction by reading cnn, reuters etc
It appears that a majority of people (who bothered to respond to my request) are at least keeping one eye on even the most initial of election results. It also looks like most of the foreign media are not reporting the minutiae of policy and tactics as much as just reinforcing to their readers that, yes, the Bush Administration will be ending soon.
Thank you for indulging my fetish for gauging international opinion. I hope you've gained a keen insight into the political mind of your average European football hooligan.